Animal-Assisted Therapy and Psychology

It’s time to address a controversy that leads to more questions than anything else in our AAT work. Not, do the dogs enjoy the work, not the debate around positive reinforcement only training and not how do you fit in bathroom breaks. No, the question we get asked most often is, “If Rory is a girl why does she have a boy’s name?”.

I could say that we decided to be all ‘Hollywood’ and give her a cryptic name such as, Apple, Moses or James Reynolds (the girl). But I would be lying. And since I believe in honesty and transparency with my clients here’s the truth…

We simply didn’t know Rory was a boy’s name!

We named Rory after Rory Gilmore from The Gilmore Girls and didn’t realise that while Rory was generally a girl’s name in America, in Australia, it’s pretty much only ever a boy’s name.

So there you have it. 1) Rory (the dog) is definitely a girl 2) She’s named for a character we both relate to! and 3) she doesn’t mind the gender confusion so much anyway!